Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

324V. I. LENINist landownership of the new farmers automatically createsanti-proletarian sentiments and a striving on the part ofthese farmers to create new privileges for themselves in theshape of right of ownership. Hence, the question reducesitself precisely to this economic consolidation. The constantfactor counteracting this will be the developmentof capitalism, which increases the superiority of large-scaleagriculture and demands constant facility for the “consolidation”of small farms into large ones. A temporary factorcounteracting it will be the land available for colonisationin Russia: consolidating the new economy meansraising the technical level of agriculture. And we have alreadyshown that every step forward in agricultural technique“opens up” for Russia more and more new areas of landavailable for colonisation.Our examination of the second question leads to thefollowing deduction: the circumstances under which thenew farmers’ demands for the division of the land willovercome all counteracting influences cannot be predictedwith accuracy. Allowance, however, must be made for thefact that capitalist development after the bourgeois revolutionwill inevitably give rise to such circumstances.As regards the last question, that concerning the attitudeof the workers’ party towards the possible demand of thenew farmers for the division of the land, a very definitereply can be given. The proletariat can and must supportthe militant bourgeoisie when the latter wages a really revolutionarystruggle against feudalism. But it is not forthe proletariat to support the bourgeoisie when the latteris becoming quiescent. If it is certain that a victoriousbourgeois revolution in Russia is impossible without thenationalisation of the land, then it is still more certainthat a subsequent turn towards the division of the landis impossible without a certain amount of “restoration”,without the peasantry (or rather, from the point of viewof the presumed relations: farmers) turning towards counterrevolution.The proletariat will uphold the revolutionarytradition against all such strivings and will not assist them.In any case, it would be a great mistake to think that,in the event of the new farmer class turning towards divisionof the land, nationalisation would be a transient phe-